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Depends of the country, a lot of countries have exceptions for interoperability (at least the whole EU) and since these projects are mainly used to make ports to other systems, it may be covered.

by AshamedCaptain1 hours ago|

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This is an absolutely ridiculous interpretation. There is no interoperability here at all, you are literally just copying the work in question.

It is like claiming that compiling Samba to run in $NEW_PLATFORM suddenly strips Samba of the GPLv3.

by realusername58 minutes ago|

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You absolutely aren't copying the work, recompilation projects are intensive work and a re-imagining of what the source code could look like. Compilation is still a one way process.

And then for the legal part, that's why it's called an exception.

by AshamedCaptain11 minutes ago|

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There is little to no creative work whatsoever if you end up with exactly the same game; and often they end up with exactly the same binary as well. Source translations are derivative works almost by definition. It doesn't matter what magic you use to generate it.

And again, where is the interoperability here? Interoperability exception would apply if there was whitebox cryptography, Nintendo logo-style things or anything else where the only method for the work to run would be to violate copyright of _exactly that_. Under no circumstances you can simply copy & distribute the entire work (or derivates) while claiming "interoperability exception!". It makes utterly no sense.

by realusername7 minutes ago|

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I disagree, the creative work is in figuring out what the game does, and the resulting recompilation is completely different from the original source code.

And then for the interoperability, these decompilation projects are primarily made to target other systems, not the original platform. That's the textbook definition of interoperability.

Let's be real, N64 and the PS1/PS2 (where most of these projects are based) are crumbling old platforms at this point and these projects are sometimes the best way to run games when they exist.

by AshamedCaptain48 seconds ago|

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Decompilation produces a derivate work. This is not up for debate, or disagreement.

The exception for interoperability only applies to _the minimum required_ for interoperability. You can use this to distribute e.g. decryption code even if copyright would not allow you to do it.

You _cannot_ use this as an excuse to pirate the entire program, much less to create your own derivative work and distribute it!

This is just wishful thinking that comes up every so often in these threads. And then, when Nintendo inevitably shuts everything down, they're the bad guys.